Broken valve train

It's been a while since anything was posted here, yet the story of the Austang rolls on . . .

Some time ago late last year, the engine gave a little burp in traffic and then started with the metallic clicking sounds. Oh dear! Quickly getting off the road it first sounded terrible, and then got a little better. So I opted to baby it to the mechanic.

Checked out and found no comp in number 7. Turned out to be a broken valve spring in the Edelbrock Head.

Contacted the Engine Factory and was told it was out of warranty . . . but they did send me a new valve spring, push rod and roller rockers. Pretty good response from them all things considered. The rollers were of a different brand but we just fitted the springs in and new push rod.

About a fortnight later more drama, while idling in the driveway, there appeared a really bad metallic noise with lots of ugly click-clack valve-train noise. Towed the car to the mechanic who discovered upon pulling off the inlet manifold . . . one of the lifters had destroyed itself. Further investigation found that two other lifters had released the pin holding the cam roller and one in fact had popped out and jammed the lifter in the bore, making it hard to remove.

The cam was of course, totally stuffed.

Another communication with the Engine Factory and they were all gob-smacked. Told me the lifters are all Elgin brand and American not asian knock offs. Said they are made in one of three US factories and each brand simply boxes them up and resells. He said that this was the first of this thing ever happening . . . Needless to say I was pissed!

He was right about the roller lifters, the replacements I bought were Federal Mogul brand and looked identical to the old ones, in fact there was so little wear on the originals, you had to be careful not to confuse them with the newbies.

Bruce at The Engine Factory asked to have the lifters sent so they can analyse . . . in the meantime he noticed the brand of the lifters were a brand they used for a while but stopped using, going back to Comps. So he sent over a new set of Comp Roller Rockers, kind of a consolation prize I guess. Once again, they seemed very concerned and this replace rollers was very much unexpected, but gratefully accepted.

So after $2500 the Austang was repaired with a new Lunati roller cam, but much milder than the original (which never really worked well with the auto trans).